New revelations on the sort of weapons expertise that was on offer to all comers have deepened the world's worries about nuclear proliferation
COMPACT in design, efficient in operation and capable of inflicting immense destruction over long distances. There is something truly spine-chilling about the sophistication of the wares displayed in a build-it-yourself bomb catalogue that was apparently shared with members of an international nuclear smuggling ring by a Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan. The quality of the goods on sale, it now appears, was every bit as alarming as the geographical scope of his network.
New nuggets of information, suggesting that bomb-making know-how as well as enrichment was on offer, have emerged in a report by David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security, an independent research outfit in Washington, DC. Mr Albright says modern designs for small, ingenious nuclear weapons have been discovered among the computer files of three Swiss citizens who were associated with Mr Khan.
“Why did [they]...have these designs, unless they had sold or intended to sell them for Mr Khan?”: that is one of Mr Albright's rhetorical questions. Without going into quite so much detail, America's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, confirmed on June 15th that the administration was as concerned about possible dissemination of weapons know-how by the Khan network as it was over the spread of uranium enrichment technology.
It now seems that on computers belonging to the Swiss trio (and reportedly on others in Dubai, Malaysia and Thailand) was the design of a modern nuclear warhead, tested and deployed by Pakistan, its parts ready-coded for ease of manufacture. But who were the likely buyers? And will this discovery prod Pakistan to tell the world more about the illicit trade Mr Khan had developed into an art form?
The network's customers for other nuclear technologies and equipment were Libya, Iran and North Korea, though suspicion has at times attached to Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Syria too. But Libya has been out of the bomb business since 2003. Jaws dropped when among the haul of equipment and documents it handed to inspectors was an Islamabad dry-cleaner's bag containing most (not all) of the drawings for a clunky Chinese-designed nuclear weapon from the 1960s, given to Pakistan before China decided that spreading the bomb was a dumb idea.
Unlike the Maoist model, the modern, computerised bomb design would fit easily on Pakistan's Ghauri missiles. Pakistan denies it, but these are a knock-off of North Korea's 1,300km-range Nodong rockets. Pakistan appears to have paid for its Ghauris with some nuclear assistance. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, denies this too. But in his autobiography he admitted that the Khan network had supplied Kim Jong Il's regime with some 20 uranium-enriching centrifuges.
Whatever the truth behind their missile deal, Pakistani officials were genuinely shocked to be told recently that Mr Khan was selling their most closely guarded weapons secrets too, according to Mr Albright. North Korea did test a nuclear device, in 2006. But its bomb used home-produced plutonium from Mr Kim's Yongbyon nuclear reactor for its fissile core; the Pakistani design touted by Mr Khan and his partners uses uranium.
Despite other evidence to the contrary, North Korea insists it got no uranium help from Pakistan or anywhere else. Recently (or so America and Israel say) it was caught out helping Syria to build a nuclear reactor (which Israel later flattened) that could produce plutonium for weapons, just like Yongbyon did. America seems ready to let both these matters go for now, so long as Mr Kim furnishes an accurate and verifiable inventory of his plutonium production. The gamble is that this would be a big step towards a six-party deal, to include South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, that could lead eventually to the dismantling of all North Korea's nuclear programmes.
Unlike Libya and North Korea, Iran flatly denies any weapons intent. It bought uranium-spinning equipment from Mr Khan, but says its nuclear work is entirely peaceful. Yet it has defied a string of UN Security Council resolutions demanding that the work be halted until inspectors can be sure of that. The trouble is that uranium enriched a little can be used in nuclear-power reactors, but when enriched a lot can be abused for bomb-building.
Iran's determination to enrich on regardless looks like dooming the latest offer of negotiations from America, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The six have promised Iran assistance with other, less proliferation-prone nuclear technology, and direct talks on a whole range of economic, trade and security issues that Iran itself raised in a set of counter-proposals last month. A crucial difference between the two offers is that Iran wants to enrich on regardless, on its own territory, whereas the six insist the work be suspended before negotiations start.
Unless Iran shows willing, says Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, European governments are prepared to extend their sanctions on Iran, for example by freezing the overseas assets of Bank Melli, Iran's largest commercial bank. (That move is not quite a done deal, but Mr Brown is confident it soon will be.) Despite record world energy prices, the Europeans may consider blocking investment in Iran's oil and gas industries too. America already has tough sanctions in place, though Russia and China do not.
Iran's insistence on enriching, whatever the cost, deepens suspicion of its motives. Now there are more worries. Like Pakistan's Ghauri missiles, Iran's Shahab-3 rockets are clones of Mr Kim's Nodongs. So the Khan network's modern warhead design would fit them just as nicely.
There is no evidence of any such transaction, but American and other intelligence agencies recently showed nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear guardian, evidence pointing to Iranian weapons work which America thinks may have stopped in 2003—though others believe it continues. This includes both high-explosive testing for possible nuclear triggers and work on a Shahab-3 missile cone to accommodate a nuclear warhead. Iran has dismissed the material as fabricated. But it has yet to give a convincing explanation of why it had a document, supplied by Mr Khan and his associates, on shaping uranium into spheres—a technique useful only in weapons building.
That is as far as the evidence goes. Pardoned by Mr Musharraf after a public confession in 2004, Mr Khan was put under house arrest. Neither American officials nor IAEA inspectors have been allowed to question him. Now the revered “father” of Pakistan's bomb is campaigning for release, and he seems to have many admirers among his compatriots. But the revelation that he was preparing to sell his own country's nuclear crown jewels surely ought to be enough to goad the authorities into questioning him more thoroughly. Without further information on the scope of his network and the real nature of his nuclear dealings, it will be impossible to assess how many other people (both salesmen and customers) are still engaged in the same murky business.
The Economist
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Selling nuclear weapons is like selling drugs, except a lot more dangerous. Both are highly profitable, highly illegal, and sell to shady customers. Nuclear weapons are lethal and a huge risk to have. What are you going to do with an item capable of causing the destruction of our entire planet? It's playing with fire. Especially when multiple parties own and are willing to use such items. It remains secure only as long as the balance of power remains intact, but the more countries obtain nuclear weapons the more shaky the situation becomes. That there is a catalouge of instructions for how to make such weapons is, while hardly surprising, a petrifying thought.
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